Kieran McCabe and the Rock of Ages cast

In an appropriate touch for the raucous stage party that is Rock of Ages, its opening-night performance came with cake – a large sheet cake celebrating Artistic Director Jim Beaudry’s 100th production at the Timber Lake Playhouse. It was presented, to his surprise, at the tail end of Beaudry’s pre-show announcements, and the touching tribute by Executive Director Dan Danielowski elicited for its recipient a deserved standing ovation. But there was an added fillip of comedy when Beaudry revealed, to much laughter, that the cake’s photo decoration of him performing in West Side Story was actually from a West Side Story Beaudry did in New York, not Mt. Carroll, making the evening’s prelude funny, thrilling, endearing, and just a little bit awkward – not unlike June 30’s Rock of Ages itself.

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO!

If you can separate your memories of Dr. Seuss' books from the experience of the computer-animated Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, you can have a reasonably good time at the film. You'll likely have a reasonably good time anyway, but for maximum enjoyment, it's best to ignore any prior knowledge of the kindly elephant and his microscopic speck-dwellers and simply accept this antic entertainment for the disposable blockbuster it is. Horton looks like a Dr. Seuss adaptation; it just doesn't much sound like one.